‘Mossad agent' hanged for killing scientist

Dubai: Iran has hanged a man it said was an agent for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad whom it convicted of killing one of its nuclear scientists in 2010, Iranian state media reported yesterday.

Tehran has accused Israel and the United States of assassinating four Iranian scientists since 2010 in order to sabotage its nuclear programme, which the West suspects is hiding Iran's attempt to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

While Israel has declined to comment on the killings, it regards Iran's nuclear programme as an existential threat and has threatened military action against Tehran. Washington denies any US role.

Twenty-four-year-old Majid Jamali Fashi was hanged at Tehran's Evin Prison after being sentenced to death in August last year for the murder of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, Iran's state news agency quoted the central prosecutor's office as saying. It said he had confessed to the crime.

Remote-controlled bomb

Ali Mohammadi was killed in January 2010 when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle outside his home in Tehran went off.

Yesterday's report said Fashi had confessed to travelling to Tel Aviv to receive training from Mossad before returning to Iran to plot the assassination.

A spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said at the time that Ali-Mohammadi, a 50-year-old Tehran University professor, was not involved in its activities.